Guide to SSD Installation and Optimization
Before Installing Your SSD Update BIOS firmware Install the latest storage driver. *Intel 35/45/55/58 Chipsets: Rapid Storage Technology (RST) drivers *AMD 700/800 Chipsets: use built-in OS drivers *Nividia/Nforce: use built-in OS drivers Before Installing Your Operating System Update SSD Firmware This can also be done after the installation of the OS. Directions for Crucial brand SSDs. You do not need to switch back to IDE mode when updating. Set the disk (SATA) controller to AHCI mode in BIOS Do not select IDE or ATA. Look for the setting under “SATA Configuration” or “Integrated Peripherals”. AMD systems have the SATA set to IDE in the BIOS by default. Using MS's drivers (AMD's AHCI drivers do not support TRIM) Consider a custom Windows 7 install Remove uneeded components to save space on smaller SSDs. A program like Win7 Lite will allow you to create a custom install from an ISO. Unplug the power to any other hard drives while you install Windows (optional) Sometimes Windows will create its “System Reserved” partition on a drive other than the one where the OS is installed, potentially causing problems. This can be avoided by unpluging the power to any other hard drives that you have until installation is complete. After Installing your OS Verify Settings When Windows 7 detects that you have a properly configured, fast SSD drive, it disables several unnecessary features, including Superfetch, Prefetch, ReadyBoot and defragmentation. Check the Windows Experience Index. Running the Windows Experience Index should allow Windows 7 to identify the drive as an SSD, and it should automatically disable defragmentaion, enable TRIM, and any other settings for the drive. The Primary hard disk score for a properly configured SSD should be over 7.0. Confirm that Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and TRIM are enabled. You can do this using a program like CrystalDiskInfo Confirm the correct AHCI drivers are installed You can confirm this using a program like AS-SSD, look for “msahci - OK”. Confirm the partition on the SSD is aligned to 4k You can confirm this using a program like AS-SSD. Windows 7 should do this automatically. Verify the SATA controller is set to AHCI Mode. #On the Start menu, select Control Panel. #Double-click 'System' from the Classic View (or the small or large icon view in Microsoft Windows 7). #Select 'Device Manager' in the left pane. #From the Device Manager, look for an entry named IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. #If this entry is present, expand it and look for one of the controllers to list AHCI. #If an AHCI controller is identified, then the system is in AHCI mode. #If none of the controllers above are shown, then your system is not in AHCI mode. #If you already installed your operating system in legacy IDE mode, it is recommended to switch to AHCI after completing the steps listed inthis Windows Article (assuming your platform supports AHCI). Performance Tweaks Adjust Power Management settings How to: #Go to Control Panel #Select Power Options and click the drop-down for Show additional plans #Select the High Performance bubble to apply it #Click Change plan settings for the High Performance profile #Click Change advanced power settings #Click the Hard disk drop-down menu #Change Turn off hard disk after to 0 minutes, reflected as Never #Hit OK and save your settings This adjustment allows the SSD's idle garbage collection to operate, even when the user is not present or logged off Disable Windows Write-Cache Buffer Flushing (optional) Benefit: performance boost for some SSDs. Risk: Data loss resulting from a power outage while the computer is operating. This is not recommended for Intel drives, as it may a negatively impact performance. Note of your performance before and after this alteration to see if it improves performance. See a detailed post on the subject . How to: #Right-click Computer in the Start menu, then select Properties #Select Device Manager #Select Disk drives #Right-click your SSD and select Properties #Under the Polices tab, check the Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device box Disable Superfetch Benefit: Superfetch caches files used often, but with the low access times of SSDs this option can be disabled. Windows 7 may disable this feature automatically. Risk: '''May hurt performance. How to: #Select the file path "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters" #Right-click on both EnablePrefetcher and EnableSuperfetch #Select Modify on each of these to change the value from 1 (or 3) to 0 #Restart Disable Prefetch '''Benefit: Free up system RAM. Risk: May result in poorer performance for some SSDs. How to: #Press the Windows key + 'R' to launch the Run dialogue box #Type "services.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter #Scroll to Superfetch, right-click, and select Properties #In the Startup type drop-down menu, select Disabled, then select OK #Scroll to Windows Search, right-click, and select Properties #Click the Stop box, use the Startup type drop-down menu,, select Disable, and hit OK Align partition to the SSDs sector size of 4K Windows 7 does this automatically, other OSes may not. Set Firefox to use the RAM for cache instead of the SSD Set Windows to “No GUI Boot” Benefit: '''This tweak is not specific to SSDs, but can speed up start times. How to: #Type "msconfig" into the Run box #Under the "Boot" tab, tick the box next to "No GUI Boot" Disable logging Space Saving Tweaks Move or resize the Paging File ''Not recommended for systems with less than 4GB of RAM. '' '''Risk: If the system runs out of physical memory, having no virtual memory available to allocate is likely to result in crashes. How to resize the paging file: #Right-click Computer #Select Properties #Select Advanced system settings #Select the Advanced tab and then the Performance radio button #Select the Change box under Virtual memory #Un-check Automatically manage paging file size for all drives #Select Custom Size If you have at least 4GB of RAM and you find you never hit the limit, try setting it the minimum to 200 and the maximum to 1GB (1024MB). Disabling the paging file altogether is not recommended, and may lead to system instability. However, if you would like to, here's how: #Right-click Computer #Select Properties #Select Advanced system settings #Select the Advanced tab and then the Performance radio button #Select the Change box under Virtual memory #Un-check Automatically manage paging file size for all drives #Select No paging file, and click the Set button #Select OK to allow and restart. Move or resize the Hibernation File Risk: '''Computer waking up slower from being idle. Considering the speed of SSDs, the difference between this and normal startup times is probably imperceiveable, and not worth the storage space cost. How to disable: *Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box. *In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator. *When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue. *At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press ENTER. *Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window. Disable or resize System Restore '''Risk: Being unable to restore your system. Benefit: Besides saving space, reduces number of writes to the SSD. How to: #Open the System Properties dialog box #Click System Protection. #Select the system drive (typically C:) and click Configure #Adjust the amount of space reserved for System restore. 3-5% is a good tradeoff for space savings/abilty to restore. Move or disable the Windows Indexing Service Benefit: Besides saving space, reduces number of writes to the SSD. '''Risk: '''Disabling the indexing service completely is not recommended, as it may affect performance. How to move the Indexing files to another drive in your system: #Click Start and type "index" in the search box. #Click Indexing Options from the results list to open the Indexing Options dialog box. #Click Advanced to open the Advanced Options dialog box. #In the Index Location section, you can see the current location of the Index (by default, this is in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft). #Click Select New and select a location on another drive. How to disable the indexing service (not recommended): #Open up Computer in the Start menu #Right-click your SSD and select Properties #Un-check the box marked "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" #If a dialog box appears, stating there is an error applying attributes, select "Ignore All" and continue Move your TEMP directory to another drive Change your environmental varaibles to move your TEMP directory off the SSD. System > Advanced > Environment Variables, locate the TEMP and TMP entries, and change their path to somewhere else. Move User directories to another drive Disable ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache How to disable: Press the Windows key + 'R' to launch the Run dialogue box Type "Regedit" (without the quotes) and hit Enter Select the file path; "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management" Right click on both ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache; Select Modify... on each of these to change the value from 1 to 0 Restart. ClearPageFileAtShutdown does exactly what it sounds like it does, it clears the PageFile when you shutdown your PC, preventing any extra writes. Since we have disabled PageFile above, there is no reason to have it enabled to clear it at shutdown. LargeSystemCache specifies whether the system maintains a standard size (8 MB) or a large size file system cache able to expand fill system memory, minus 4 MB, if needed, and influences how often the system writes changed pages to disk. Naturally, a large file system cache reduces the physical memory space available to applications and services. If you installed Windows 7 to your SSD, there's a good chance both of these options are already disabled. Software/Utilities SSD Tweak Utility AS-SSD SSD Tweaker http://elpamsoft.com/Downloads.aspx ATTO Disk Mark http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4 Sources/Other Guides http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911.html http://lifehacker.com/5802838 http://blog.superuser.com/2011/05/10/maximizing-the-lifetime-of-your-ssd/ http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?79848-THE-BASIC-GUIDE-amp-FAQ-ABC-for-OCZ-SSD http://www.overclock.net/ssd/929553-win-7-ssds-setup-secrets.html http://www.overclock.net/ssd/929553-win-7-ssds-setup-secrets.html http://www.overclock.net/ssd/890571-guide-installing-windows-7-new-drive.html http://www.overclock.net/ssd/761471-moving-your-documents-pictures-videos-folders.html http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives-storage/621233-tips-pointers-running-your-os-ssd.html Terms Sequential Read/Write 4k read/write Unsorted Tweaks Confirm Disk Defrag service is disabled Use Large System Cache NTFS Memory Usage Disable 8.3 Filenames Disable Date Stamping Disable Boot Tracing Windows Prefetcher Windows Vista Superfetch move the winsxs folder to a hd? Let's you Tweak the following: • Windows Defrag • Use Large System Cache • NTFS Memory Usage • Disable 8.3 Filenames • Disable Date Stamping • Disable Boot Tracing • Windows Prefetcher • Windows Vista Superfetch